Online pornography has now become so normal that you can follow its stars on
Instagram and watch it during breaks at work. But at what cost, asks Radhika
Sanghani

In 2015, admitting that you watch porn is not going to elicit much of a reaction. Unless you’re the Pope, no one really cares if you’ve spent a few evenings surfing Pornhub. If you’re a student, it’s pretty much expected you’ll know your way around the X-rated web and in Italy, you’re even allowed to surf porn on your lunch break.

This week the Supreme Court in Rome effectively said just that. In a case where Fiat, the car manufacturer, had fired an employee for watching porn at work, the Supreme Court took the side of the employee. According to the judge, he was free to do whatever he wanted on his lunch break - even if it involved hard-core DVDs.

In Britain our courts might not have the same reaction, but our employees are no different. Earlier this year it came out that porn sites were accessed 20,000 times a month on computers belonging to MPs, peers and staff. That’s right - porn is rife is the Houses of Parliament.

In Italy you can do this at work Photo: Alamy Stock Photo

The rapid growth of technology over the last couple of decades has brought with it effortless, 24-hour, unlimited access to porn.

Porn is no longer shocking. It has become normalised to the point where young children are getting their first sex education lessons via RedTube. Recent studies show that pupils as young as 11 watch pornography, and at my secondary school in the noughties, it was the only way we teens learnt how to ‘do stuff’.

"While girls of my generation would watch porn simply to learn what third base was, this new generation of girls are watching it for career advice."

Girls and boys alike would Google ‘oral sex’ to figure out exactly what it was and how to go about it. Porn was watched primarily for information rather than sexual satisfaction, and it soon completely overtook our sex ed.

The consequences have been severe. These porn videos showed a one-sided, male perspective of sex - with overly-eager girls and absolutely no emphasis on female pleasure. A number of my peers now have sexual issues they directly relate to porn, such as struggling to orgasm, hating pubic hair and needing 'stimulants' such as rough sex in order to come. As scientists have previously suggested, many can also struggle with intimacy.

But this is not the end of porn’s influence. While girls of my generation would watch porn simply to learn what third base was, now a new generation of girls is watching it for career advice. Seriously.

Recent documentary Hot Girls Wanted, produced by Rashida Jones,shed light on a phenomenon where teen girls, bred on a diet of Kardashians, dream of joining the amateur porn industry. They see famous porn stars like Mia Khalifa racking up thousands of Twitter followers, women like Tori Black sharing glamorous shots on Instagram, and reality stars like Farrah Abraham using sex videos to get on Big Brother.

These girls are so taken in by the airbrushed reality of life as a porn star that they start to see it as a legitimate career option.

If a woman wants to work in the porn industry then, of course, that's her choice - if it's fully consensual, legal and she knows what she's getting into.

But that’s the problem. These girls have no idea what the reality of the amateur porn industry is like. Jones’ documentary follows a handful of wannabe stars who move to Los Angeles to kick start their careers. They’re all 18, excited and confident they’ll make it to the top.

Only one girl lasts in the industry for longer than a year.

Their ‘pimp’ explains they only have a ‘shelf life’ of three to six months as porn stars. After that period, they’re old news and either have to start accepting the jobs no one wants (fetish and facial abuse, where they’re forced to give oral sex and often reduced to tears) or go back to their families.

Hot Girls Wanted is available on Netflix

It’s a lose-lose situation and comes as a shock to these young women, who'd been led to believe that being a porn star is easy and mostly about pouting on social media.

We all have a responsibility to stop accepting porn so casually. A number of hotel providers are already starting to do just that. The Hilton and Marriott chains have banned on-demand porn in their rooms and this week, Hyatt Hotels joined them in discontinuing adult movie entertainment.

Of course guests can still use the WiFi to surf porn, but it’s a welcome start. These hotels are putting out the message that porn is not an accepted part of their service, or an expectation guests can rely on.

And whether the Italian Supreme Court likes it or not, porn in its current form is damaging the personal and professional lives of teens across the world.

The only way to stop this is to start countering the glossy Instagram narrative on porn, with more information about its reality. Young girls need better sex education, so they don’t have to resort to watching porn for tips, and they need to understand what it would actually be like to release a sex tape. Not everyone can be Kim Kardashian.